Healthnotes Newswire (May 22, 2008)—A new study in Pediatrics highlights the negative effects of TV on adolescents. Teens with TVs in their bedroom are less physically active, eat fewer fruits and vegetables, and don’t do as well in school. “Refraining from placing a television in teenagers’ rooms may be a first step in helping to decrease screen time and subsequent poor behaviors associated with increased television watching,” say the study’s authors.

As part of Project Eating Among Teens, the new study investigated the relationship between having a TV in the bedroom and several measures of diet, activity, family participation, and grade point average.

Of the 781 adolescents who completed the study, nearly two-thirds had a TV in their bedroom. Compared with girls without a bedroom TV, those with a TV spent less time engaged in vigorous physical activity and more time watching TV, shared fewer family meals, ate fewer vegetables, and drank more sweetened beverages. Boys with a TV in their bedroom also spent more time watching TV, ate less fruit, spent less time eating with their family, and had a lower grade point average than those without. Twice as many teens with a TV in their bedroom were “heavy” TV users, meaning that they watched television for five or more hours per day.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that total media time be limited to one to two hours per day of quality programming and that TVs be kept out of children’s bedrooms.

Despite these recommendations, the average child or adolescent spends about three hours watching TV every day, and this figure exceeds six hours when all media exposure is combined (TV, movies, video games, and computer time). As the AAP commented in a policy statement regarding children and TV exposure, “Time spent with various media may displace other more active and meaningful pursuits, such as reading, exercising, and playing with friends.”

In a media-saturated society, it can be a challenge to keep kids’ TV viewing in check. Dr. Erica LePore, a naturopathic doctor in Rhode Island says, “I find it’s easier to limit media exposure by making TV less accessible. If children grow up in a house where the TV lives in the basement and only makes occasional appearances for a special viewing, they grow accustomed to it. Children are less likely to indulge in heavy TV watching later in life when they’ve grown up reading and engaging in creative play.”

The AAP also offers these suggestions:

• Discourage TV viewing for children younger than 2 years, and encourage more interactive activities that will promote proper brain development, such as talking, playing, singing, and reading together.

• Monitor the shows children and adolescents are viewing.

• Watch TV programs along with children, and discuss the content.

• Encourage alternative entertainment for children, including reading, athletics, hobbies, and creative play.

(Pediatrics 2008;121:718–24)